he can't talk about foreign policy, he doesn't have anything. the only thing he can argue is that obama has not been a good steward of the economy, but as we know, obama has a very good answer to that. and that's on offense. then you think about what he has to do on defense. he's going to be on the defense on the 47%. he's going to be on defense on his tax question. i mean, this is a guy who doesn't have very much to work with at this point. so it's hard for me to see, even if he doesn't make a major gaffe, which he does on a weekly basis, even if he doesn't, what ammunition does he have to actually have a good showing? >> i'm told there are examples of elections turning on debates, president bush for example started gaining on al gore when they faced off in 2000. is it usually the case that debates are quite the kind of game-changer that everybody thinks this one has to be for romney to do anything successfully in november? >> no, it's not. the historical data shows that i think we sort of exaggerate the role of debates. i would tip my hat to t